


Escape from Skyhold

by Enda



Series: Florae [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28438152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enda/pseuds/Enda
Summary: After the Breach is closed, Skyhold gets a bit stifling. The Inquisitor, Varric, and Cassandra escape to the Hinterlands, where they reminisce about old times and drink far too much whiskey.(Possibly the fic equivalent of feeling nostalgic about DAI and watching funniest moments compilations on YouTube at 2am.)Oneshot in a broader series, but can stand on its own.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Florae [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080824
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	Escape from Skyhold

**Author's Note:**

> I was sorely tempted to title this “Trouble With Wolves” but felt it would be misleading since Solas isn’t the primary subject here. Please accept the more boring title of “Escape from Skyhold” instead.

The Breach is closed, but the work of the Inquisition remains.

There are endless negotiations with Fereldan and Orlais about Inquisition soldiers still patrolling their lands, and reports of lingering rifts. They get requests every week from various nobility across Thedas, for favors and promises of influence and riches if they help with this matter or that. It is exhausting work, and Halani is grateful for Josephine and Leliana, who handle these thankless politics.

Halani played that role when she had to—that of the Inquisitor, the politician, the de facto governor of half of Thedas. But if she has to read yet another report from a scout, or decipher the hidden meaning behind the latest invitation from a courtier, she will scream.

It is in this restless mood that she asks Cassandra and Varric if they want to join her in a small mission to the Hinterlands: to give Horsemaster Dennet and his family a reward for his service. He left the Inquisition a month ago, to go back to his family. The gift isn’t much—just a scroll, really, that names him as a valued serviceman of the Inquisition, and a modest gift of gold. But neither Cassandra nor Varric call her on the pretext.

Cassandra is just as eager as Halani is to get out of Skyhold, probably to escape the ongoing discussions about her succession as Divine. And when she asks Varric, he only grins and asks her how quickly they can leave.

So, the next day, they depart with a small retinue of scouts. It is a sunny, cool morning. Autumn is approaching, and comes quickly in the mountains.

“Thank the Maker we got out of that political hornet’s nest,” Varric says from the back of his horse. “If I wanted to live in the Winter Palace, I would have gone to Orlais.”

Cassandra laughs. “Truly. If one more person asked me about becoming Divine, I was going to challenge them to a duel!”

Halani laughs too, taking in the scenery as they descend down the pass, the majestic peaks of the Frostbacks surrounding them. It feels so good to have the wind on her face, the petty troubles of Skyhold falling far behind them.

That night, after they set up camp and make dinner, Halani looks at their faces around the fire, and can’t help but smile, an ache in her throat. It is the same as the old days, but so very different. Cassandra has a new scar on her face, and Varric’s hair has a single streak of gray. How could any of them have guessed, from those early days in Haven, what their ragtag band would become? Not to mention the friendship between Cassandra and Varric, which Halani counts as a victory as sure as their defeat of Corypheus. 

It takes them three days to reach the Hinterlands, and they spend much of the journey reminiscing.

“Remember when that Avaar chief threw goats at our castle?” Varric bends over the back of his horse, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “The _look_ on Josephine’s face…” 

“Not to mention,” Cassandra adds, “when we went to Orlais and Sera made them announce her as…”

“ _Mai Bhalsych of Korse,_ ” Varric guffaws.

Halani wipes tears of laughter from her eyes. It’s like how a wound needs fresh air to heal, she reflects. After everything they’ve gone through together, they can finally laugh about it.

When they finally reach Horsemaster Dennet’s farm, the sun is bright and the leaves of the trees are tinged with red. They present the scroll and the gold to him and his family. Halani was worried that the gift would seem small, but their thanks is genuine. 

“We are honored that the Inquisitor herself came to present this to us,” Dennet says. He smiles wryly as he adds: “And surprised. Can I assume things in Skyhold have gotten a bit… stifling?”

“Indeed,” Halani replies, her tone studiously neutral. “The change of scenery has been more than welcome.”

Elaina insists they stay for dinner, and so they do, sharing a meal and Dennet’s finest bottle of whiskey around a cramped table.

“Where’s your daughter?” Halani asks Dennet as they eat. “Seanna, was it?”

“Yes, our girl Seanna. She and Bron finally made it official—my farmhand, I don’t know if you remember him. They moved to Redcliffe village.”

“Seanna’s pregnant,” Elaina adds, beaming.

“Congratulations!” Halani exclaims, and is surprised at the catch in her voice.

A year ago, on her very first mission as Herald, this land had been covered in corpses and burning ruins. The roads were filled with weary travelers fleeing the violence, despair in their eyes. Now, people feel safe enough to start families. Halani feels the immensity of what the Inquisition has accomplished anew, and for while, she cannot speak. She looks down at her plate, tears blurring her eyes.

She surreptitiously wipes them away, and looks up to see Dennet smiling at her in understanding. “You’ve done good work here, Inquisitor. I’m glad I got to be a part of it, even in a small way.”

After they finish eating and bid their farewells, they set up camp nearby, and Varric produces another bottle of whiskey from his bags.

“I don’t want to go back,” Halani sighs, as they sit around the fire.

Cassandra grabs the bottle of whiskey from Varric and takes a long swig. “Neither do I. All this talk of becoming the Divine… Things were so much simpler before. See demon—kill demon.”

“Find rift,” Halani adds, “seal rift.”

“See red lyrium, destroy red lyrium.” Varric takes the bottle back from Cassandra and takes a gulp.

“You’ll be going back to Kirkwall soon, then, Varric?” Cassandra asks.

He sighs. “Yes. I’ve been buried by letters the past month. The problems seem to get worse by the day, and they seem to think I’m the only one who can fix them.”

“You’ll do a good job,” Cassandra says, smiling at him.

“And you’ll be a good Divine,” Varric says. “You’ll be so good that the Chantry won’t mind when you pull out a dirty novel in between delivering sermons and blessing babies.”

Cassandra picks up a stick and throws it at him.

After a few more rounds of passing the whiskey around the fire, and as her speech grows increasingly slurred, Cassandra bids them goodnight and stumbles into her tent to sleep.

“Do you think she even took off her armor?” Varric jokes.

Halani laughs. “Probably not.” She puts her hand out for the whiskey, and Varric complies.

She swishes it around in the bottle, holding it up to the firelight—it’s almost gone, already. “Well, we’ve made short work of this.”

“We deserve it,” Varric says. “We’ve been running around the better part of Thedas for a year. The ratio of booze to battles has been sorely out of balance.” He grabs the bottle back from her and finishes it off. “Oh, how I’ve missed the feeling of a terrible hangover.”

“Are you looking forward to going back to Kirkwall? Is Hawke there now?”

Varric doesn’t answer for a moment, gazing into the fire. “I’m not sure where she is. I’ve received reports, but nothing certain.”

“I’m sorry, Varric.”

“It’s fine. Hawke is tough—and very lucky. I’m sure she’ll turn up. With something extremely interesting, no less.”

“What will you do when you go back?”

“Oh, the usual, I suppose. Mediating between bickering factions, reading and writing endless reports. And, of course, making a lot of gold.”

“And writing your next novel?” she asks with a sly grin.

“Oh, I don’t know. It takes a while for… For events like this,” he waves his hands, gesturing to everything around them, “to turn into a good story. It’s chaos at first, because real life is chaotic. Stories require some distance to turn that raw material into gold.”

“Hmm.” Halani reflects on that, on the strange prospect of being a character in a book. “And how will you describe the fabled Inquisitor?” 

Varric chuckles. “You’ll have to find out.”

“Oh, come on! I don’t have a say in my own depiction?”

“Well,” he says, his tone turning thoughtful. “How would you want me to describe you?”

Halani thinks for a moment, and then laughs. “Good point. I don’t know. I guess… fair? Kind? Good at fighting?”

“That’s extremely boring, Daggers.” 

“Well, you can say that I’m funny, too.”

“Nice, good at fighting, _and_ witty? You can’t be _too_ perfect, Inquisitor. Readers want someone they can relate to.”

Halani’s smile fades. “Oh, I’m far from perfect.”

Varric is silent, and Halani knows him well enough to know that it’s a storyteller’s tactic to draw her out. And because she is drunk, and full of feelings she hasn’t been able to express, she lets herself be drawn out. 

“Solas…” Even saying his name makes her throat ache.

“Ah, yes. Our beloved hobo apostate.” 

Halani musters a weak laugh. “Yes. He was that. At first… and then…”

Varric waits for her to continue, but when she doesn’t, he ventures: “I always did think you looked a bit _too_ happy when you walked out of the rotunda.”

Halani laughs, in earnest this time. “Oh, gods. I suppose it was obvious.”

“No,” he replies, his tone thoughtful. “Not obvious. But as you know, I am a brilliant observer of the human condition. And there were a _number_ of tortured looks between the two of you.”

Halani sighs. “Tortured is right.”

“And,” Varric adds, “we never needed _that_ many herbs.”

“Ha. We did go foraging together a lot. To be honest, though, it wasn’t anything salacious. We didn’t really…”

Varric is silent, waiting for her to continue.

“I mean, it was more of a spiritual connection than anything else.” She smiles despite herself, staring into the flames. “I suppose that makes sense, given who he is.”

“So, am I to take it that you… and him… in the Fade?”

Now Halani is the one to throw a stick at him, but she is still smiling. It fades as she stares into the fire, watching the flames leap and fall. “I just regret that I never got him to tell me whatever secret he’s hiding. Whatever it is that made him think he had to leave us.”

“Well, that’s no fault of yours. And take it from a dwarf with a bow named after his ex-lover… You find ways to cope. Weird ways, but you do.”

“True. I suppose that’s the one good thing about the mess that the Inquisition has turned into. I still have work ahead of me.” Halani sighs again. “But does it have to be so _boring_?”

At that, Varric laughs. They both stare into the fire in companionable silence. After a while, he stands and and pulls out something from his pack. Another bottle of whiskey. He leaves it by her on the ground, and salutes her.

“Well done, Inquisitor. Not just here in the Hinterlands, but across Thedas. The last year was awful, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And I…”

For once, Varric seems lost for words.

Her eyes blurring with tears, Halani shoves him towards his tent. “Go on. We’ll have plenty of more nights for whiskey and heartfelt speeches.”

“I’ll take that as a promise. Goodnight, Daggers.”

“Goodnight, Varric.”

Halani opens the new bottle and sips it, staring into the fire until it dwindles to embers.

She had just said to Varric that they have plenty of nights ahead of them. But the truth is—they don’t. He will go back to Kirkwill, Cassandra will become the Divine. Dorian will return to Tevinter, and…

What would Halani do? Who is she, without the mantle of the Inquisition? _And without Solas_ , part of her whispers, but she pushes it aside. She only knew him for a year, one out of many she would hopefully live to see. She loves him, oh gods, she loves him still. But as Dorian said, in what feels like a lifetime ago—she deserves more. She has a future without him, and even without the Inquisition.

As dawn approaches, she looks up at the fading stars, the scar of the healed Breach still rippling in the sky. 

She sighs, puts the stopper back in the bottle of whiskey, and heads to her tent.

The rest of her life is ahead of her. She’d better get some sleep.


End file.
